July 30, 2010

Urban Institute: UI has announced several new releases from Jul. 23-Jul. 28, 2010. Reports are usually in .pdf format. Older new releases can be found by clicking on ‘next page’ at the top right side of the page.

Abstract
In summer 2007, the US subprime crisis emerged and economic growth in industrialised countries started to slow down. The situation deteriorated after the default of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and despite massive government interventions, the United States and most European countries slid into recession. We investigate the influence of the recent economic and financial crisis on European labour market perspectives and educational attainment decisions. Furthermore we disentangle the differential impacts of the crisis on various demographic subgroups. We find that young male workers have been hit hardest, while older workers and women have been partially protected by non-redeemable contracts and the fact that they work in sectors which have been less severely hit by the crisis. Focusing on the education sector, it seems that the demand for education increases because individuals try to circumvent the tight labour market, while the supply of education suffers because of the increased pressures on federal budgets in most European countries. However, we conclude that it is too early to make a definite statement because the full impact of the crisis on the education sector is still to come.

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: The latest issue of MMWR, Vol. 59, No. 29, July 30, 2010 (HTML and .pdf format) is available from the US Centers for Disease Control site). Note: To access this issue in the future, simply click on “Weekly Report” and then “Current Volume” or “Past Volumes” on the left side of the page.

US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Subcommittee on Children and Families Hearing Testimony: “The State of the American Child: The Impact of Federal Policies on Children,” a hearing held July 29, 2010 (witness statements in .pdf format, full hearing can be viewed in Media Player format).

An increasing body of literature documents considerable disparities in the health and wellbeing of young children in the United States, though maternal depression is one important, yet often overlooked, determinant of children?s health. In this paper, I find that maternal depression, particularly depression that is recurrent or chronic, puts children at risk of having unfavorable health when they are five years old. This finding persists despite accounting for a host of demographic characteristics of the mothers and children, as well as adjusting for a lagged indicator of children’s health. Results suggest that socioeconomic status, as well as maternal health and health behaviors, account for a large portion of the association between maternal depression and children’s health. There is also some evidence that maternal depression is more consequential for children born to unmarried mothers than children born to married mothers.

Context: Cohabitation has been integrated into research on American family life; however, little work has specifically examined the role of cohabitation among teenagers or its relationship with teenage childbearing. Including cohabitation in the assessment of teenage family formation contributes to our understanding of later family life trajectories.

Methods: Drawing on the National Survey of Family Growth (2002), we examine family formation activities (i.e., cohabitation, marriage, and childbearing) of 2,290 women who were 15 to 19 years of age throughout the decade prior to the survey year (1993-2001). Life table analyses examine teenagers who cohabited, married, or conceived their first child. Event history analyses investigate the time-varying first fertile teenage conception status and union status, as well as the socioeconomic predictors of teenage family formation.

Results: About two-fifths of teenage females cohabited, married, or had a child. Teenage cohabitation and marriage are both positively associated with higher odds of first teenage fertile conception. The vast majority of single pregnant teenagers did not form a union before the birth of their child; only 17% cohabited and 9% married. In contrast, the majority of single pregnant teenagers cohabited (63%) by the child’s third birthday, and about 15% married. Net of other covariates, mother’s education and race/ethnicity predicted first teenage fertile conception.

Conclusions: Even though delayed marriage and childbearing occurs, family formation is still occurring among teenagers. Cohabitation has become an important part of the landscape of the 3 adolescent years, and many teenage mothers described as “single mothers” are actually in cohabiting relationships.

National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) Working Papers:

A. “Scrambling the Nest Egg: How Well Do Teachers Understand their Pensions and What Do They Think about Alternative Pension Structures?” by Michael DeArmond and Dan Goldhaber (Working Paper No. 51, June 2010, .pdf format, 37p.).

Abstract:

This paper addresses two questions: How well do teachers understand their current pension plans? And, what do they think about alternative plan structures? The data come from administrative records and a 2006 survey of teachers in Washington State. The results suggest Washington’s teachers are fairly knowledgeable about their pensions, though new entrants and mid-career teachers appear to be less knowledgeable than veteran teachers. As for teachers’ preferences for plan structure, the survey suggests that when it comes to investing additional retirement savings, a plurality of teachers favor defined contribution plans which offer more portability and choice, but more risk than traditional defined benefit plans. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all else equal, teachers newer to the profession are more likely than veteran teachers to favor a defined contribution structure.

Reform advocates and policymakers concerned about the quality and distribution of teachers support proposals of alternative compensation for teachers in hard-to-hire subject areas, hard-to-staff schools, and with special knowledge and skills. The successful implementation of such proposals depends in large part on teacher attitudes. The current body of research on teacher attitudes toward compensation reform paints an inconsistent picture of teachers’ views, largely ignoring the influence of individual and workplace characteristics on teacher attitudes. Results from a 2006 survey of teachers in Washington State linked to school and district data confirm earlier findings that teacher opinion about pay reform is not uniform, and further illustrates teacher preferences for different pay structures vary substantially by individual and workplace characteristics. Nearly three quarters of teachers favored higher pay for hard-to-staff schools. In contrast, only 17% favored merit pay. Teachers with a high degree of confidence in their principal were more likely to support merit pay than those with greater sense of trust and respect for their fellow teachers than for their principal. Policymakers interested in implementing new pay systems should carefully assess teacher opinion in determining where (and how) they invest in them.

Does differential access to computer technology at home compound the educational disparities between rich and poor? Would a program of government provision of computers to early secondary school students reduce these disparities? The authors use administrative data on North Carolina public school students to corroborate earlier surveys that document broad racial and socioeconomic gaps in home computer access and use. Using within-student variation in home computer access, and across-ZIP code variation in the timing of the introduction of high-speed internet service, the authors demonstrate that the introduction of home computer technology is associated with modest but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student math and reading test scores. Further evidence suggests that providing universal access to home computers and high-speed internet access would broaden, rather than narrow, math and reading achievement gaps.

US House Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support Hearing Testimony: “Hearing to Review the Use of Child Welfare Waiver Demonstration Projects to Promote Child Well-Being,” a hearing held July 29, 2010 (witness statements in .pdf format).

B. “Knowledge and Beliefs Concerning Development and Income Inequality in China and the United States,” Arland Thornton and Yu Xie (PSC Research Report No. 10-714, July 2010, .pdf format, 27p.). Note: Links to the abstract and full-text can be found at:

Context: Sexual behavior outside of committed relationships (casual sex) has received increased public attention and lead to concerns about young adult sexual health. Virtually all recent research on casual sex relies on samples of college students. Moving beyond prior studies, this study includes the casual sexual behavior of young adults who have the full spectrum of education experiences.

Methods: We draw on the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) which was collected in 2006-2007 and includes young adults (ages 18-24) with diverse educational trajectories (N=973). We use three indicators of number of casual sex partners: lifetime vaginal; recent vaginal; and lifetime oral. We estimate OLS regression models to assess education differentials in the mean number of casual sex partners.

Results: The majority (59%) of young adults have had some casual sex experience. They report having 3.2 lifetime casual vaginal sex partners, 1.4 recent casual vaginal sex partners, and 2.1 lifetime casual oral sex partners. Young adults with less than a high school degree and those who had some college experience but are currently not enrolled have significantly more casual sex partners than respondents enrolled in four-year programs.

Conclusions: Respondents enrolled in four-year institutions are less likely to have casual sex and have fewer partners than their peers. Thus, much of the current research on young adult casual sex is omitting those who are facing some of the highest levels of risky sexual behavior. Future work on casual sex should be expanded to consider diverse samples of young adults.

Recent research demonstrates perceptions of gender mistrust are implicated in lower marriage rates. Yet few quantitative studies have examined how gender mistrust may develop during adolescence and whether it influences the quality of subsequent romantic relationships. Analysis of three waves of the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (N = 1,106) indicates that socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and family structure are related to adolescents’ gender mistrust, but these associations are largely explained by parents’ gender mistrust and parent-child relationship quality. Perceptions of gender mistrust are related to higher levels of passionate love, verbal conflict, and jealousy in adolescents’ subsequent romantic relationships, especially for males. It appears that family processes influence the development of gender mistrust, which, in turn, influence conduct within romantic relationships.

Institute for Research and Information in Health Economics [IRDES] Working Paper: “Effort or Circumstances: Does the Correlation Matter for Inequality of Opportunity in Health?” by Florence Jusot, Sandy Tubeuf, and Alain Trannoy (Working Paper No. 33, July 2010, .pdf format, 33p.).

Abstract:

This paper proposes a method to quantify the contribution of inequalities of opportunities and inequalities due to differences in effort to be in good health to overall health inequality. It examines three alternative specifications of legitimate and illegitimate inequalities drawing on Roemer, Barry and Swift’s considerations of circumstances and effort. The issue at stake is how to treat the correlation between circumstances and effort. Using a representative French health survey undertaken in 2006 and partly designed for this purpose, and the natural decomposition of the variance, the contribution of circumstances to inequalities in self-assessed health only differs of a few percentage points according to the approach. The same applies for the contribution of effort which represents at most 8%, while circumstances can account for up to 46%. The remaining part is due to the impact of age and sex.

Centre d’Etudes de Populations, de Pauvreté et de Politiques Socio-Economiques / International Network for Studies in Technology, Environment, Alternatives, Development [Differdange, Luxembourg] Working Paper: “Determinants of Subjective Well-Being in High and Low Income Countries: do happiness equations differ across countries?” by Francesco Sarracino (Working Paper No. 2010-15, July 2010, .pdf format, 33p.).

Abstract:

Abstract:

Different theories have been advanced to explain what really makes people happy or satisfied with their life, but they are mainly focused on developed countries. Furthermore, there is still not a general agreement on whether the determinants of subjective well-being are the same or not across countries. A deeper understanding of what is really important for individuals’ well-being could provide positive spill-overs in drawing new economic policies liable to improve the human lot.

Present work tests the cross-country comparability of the happiness equation checking for the effects of absolute income, positional and relational goods and social capital in High and Low Income Countries.

Results suggest an overall stability of the happiness equation in the two groups of countries. In particular, income is confirmed as an important correlate of subjective well-being, but at the same time it emerges as not being the only one. This holds for both poor and rich countries. Positional aspects considerably matters with stronger effects in poor countries. Proxies of relational goods are positively correlated with subjective well-being as well, although different aspects matter depending whether we are condidering poor or rich countries. Finally, social capital proxies show positive coefficients that are larger in high income countries.

National Center for Education Statistics Report: “Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: 2007-08,” by Chris Plotts & Jennifer Sable (NCES 2010349, July 2010, .pdf format, 81p.).

Brookings Institute Report: “Surveying for Dollars: The Role of the American Community Survey in the Geographic Distribution of Federal Funds,” by Andrew Reamer and Rachel Blanchard Carpenter (July 2010, .pdf format, 18p.).